I promised no more comments, but...
Lt. General Blasik's CV:
400 Bad Request
(The link is live if you click on it, I don't know why the 400 code comes up as title...)
Will let everyone draw their own conclusions..
It is a standard military agenda, nothing special, nothing out of order.
Even the hours mostly flown in a combat jet with average flight time of one hour ist nothing to quarrel about. Those hours are meassured wheels off ground, to wheels on ground. The career type officers dont fly that much, and his flying expierience has no weight in this accident.
I still dont get the point concerning all this talking
- he ordered it
- he should have prohibited it
- he influenced the crew
- they would have decided otherwise if he wouldnīt have been there.....
Those are all assumptions based on the tragic outcome. Further on, it founds on the conclusion, that the flight and approach itself was illegal already from the beginning and nobody stopped it.
Again, the aircraft did not crash due to the flight itself or due to the weather or due to a general on board, it crashed because of simple human errors or neglects, which showed too late. The report and the CVR show none of the previously assumed scud-run. It shows no clear and proven intention to bust the minimums from beginning, it shows no direct influence of General Blasik in the final moments. And only those final moments caused the tragic outcome.
Why did they not go around in time and bust the minimums? Because the used altitude information (from ATC and from the Navigator) had been wrong and in their minds the time to go around lay ahead in the future, when they already had passed it. When everybody caught up with the reality, it ws too late.
Be honest, the "General Blasikīs" are present in any operation of commercial and military aviation. The personal presence is not necessary. Any diversion has to be explained, any denial of flight has to have itīs sound reason. Any delay in departure or arrival is questioned and so on. And the consequences of decisions leading to those unwanted items can go as far as loosing the job.
Same with the approach. Approaches below minimum WX, with too much crosswind, with lots of water on the runway and so on occur daily around the world, being planned or unplanned. Most end up ok, some dont. Flights are heading to airfields with none or minimal or out of order nav-aids, nothing special there either.
So forget about the cargo (VIPīs), the type of flight (Mil/OAT or GAT), the airfield filed to (MIL or GAT), the ATC available, and follw through the flight.
Then you end up with a CFIT due to Pilot / Crew error. The role of ATC is in question concerning the given incorrect glidepath information, but as it was only information the blame falls short.
That the flight carried on till impact with automatics on is another point to think about, but it is discussed in several other threads already.
franzl